Patriots

Brady: As Much As We Could Handle

Quarterback Tom Brady talks to his team during the fourth quarter of the game against the Green Bay Packers at Gillette Stadium on December 19, 2010. The Patriots won the game 31-27. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

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FOXBORO (CBS) – Patriots quarterback Tom Brady talks about Sunday night’s win against the Packers. Transcript as provided by the New England Patriots.

Q: Let’s start with the longest play of the day, Dan Connolly’s kickoff return.

TB: That was the longest kickoff return ever and the longest … I’ve never seen anything happen so slow in my life. It was an unbelievable play. I can never imagine anything like that is going to happen. That really was a big play in the game. If it happens, we’ve got to take advantage of it and Danny [made] that heads-up play, smart. They won’t be kicking to him anymore, I’ll tell you that.

Q: When you have to score a touchdown on that final drive, what are you telling the team in the huddle when you have to score?

TB: There was definitely urgency there in the second half. We didn’t do much to help ourselves throughout the entire game. There were so many long-yardage situations. Against a team like this, that’s one thing we talked about not doing – not putting ourselves in long-yardage situations. They made it tough on us. It’s a damn good defense, real good secondary, good defensive front. They gave us all we could handle tonight, so you give them a lot of credit. They’re very well coached. They play from the opening kickoff to the last play of the game. It took all 60 minutes. When we needed it, we made the plays. I’m glad we won.

Q: When you see another offense in an end-of-the-game situation like that, are you analyzing it from the sidelines in terms of timeouts and what the defense is doing?

TB: You always run through the situations. I’m probably more thinking about what we’re going to do if they score and we’ve got to get the ball down the field. Those are probably more of my thoughts. Our defense has really made those plays all year at the end of the game. The Colts game was a big game where they made some plays. [Against] Baltimore they made some big stops. We’ve been in some close games and we came out ahead. This was as much as we could handle. I think we’ve got to come in and have a very good week of practice and get ready to go to Buffalo and play another very good defense.

Q: How hard is it to get something going and get in a rhythm and timing in the fourth quarter when the offense has been off the field so much of the game?

TB: Well, I think that’s a great question. And it’s hard to get into a rhythm. I wish we could, as an offense, stay out there to get us in a rhythm. Part of us not being on the field was our lack of execution. We need to go out there and execute better in order to stay on the field and get our defense off the field. I’m sure we lost the time of possession. I’m sure we lost the field position. I don’t think we were great on third down by any stretch. It was really not a great offensive effort. I think we just … the defense [and] special teams made some huge plays for us and that’s what we needed today.

Q: It seems like every week it’s either Aaron Hernandez or Rob Gronkowski making big plays. How’s your comfort level with those guys?

TB: Sure, and they’ve done that all year. Those two young tight ends and Alge [Crumpler], what a great group of guys and a great group of teammates. To rely on those guys week in and week out, you’re right; one week it’s Gronk, one week it’s Aaron. Alge has been a huge factor in these games. That’s what it’s going to take. We’re going to need everybody. There’s not a player on this roster that we don’t need and that really kind of showed up today.

Q: Did you see anything specific to Aaron Hernandez on that last touchdown? It looked like you kind of moved him around a little. Did you tell him it was coming to him?

TB: We had a play called and they were in a pretty good defense to stop it, so we checked out of it and I liked Aaron’s matchup over there on the guy that he had and threw it to him. He made a great catch and a great, really, run after catch, too, to stay on his feet like he did and get in the end zone. Just two big touchdowns for him. He’s been great. He works hard in practice. Practices every day, and he came up big tonight.